Europe

KYIV, Ukarine (AP) — Russian forces are pounding the city of Lysychansk and its surroundings in an all-out attempt to seize the last stronghold of resistance in eastern Ukraine’s Luhansk province, the governor said Saturday.

Ukrainian fighters have spent weeks trying to defend the city and to keep it from falling to Russia, as neighboring Sievierodonetsk did a week ago. The Russian Defense Ministry said its forces took control of an oil refinery on Lysychansk’s edge in recent days, but Luhansk Gov. Serhiy Haidai reported Friday that fighting for the facility continued.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The latest in a litany of horrors in Ukraine came this week as Russian firepower rained down on civilians in a busy shopping mall far from the front lines of a war in its fifth month.

The timing was not likely a coincidence.

While much of the attritional war in Ukraine’s east is hidden from sight, the brutality of Russian missile strikes on a mall in the central city of Kremenchuk and on residential buildings in the capital, Kyiv, unfolded in full view of the world and especially of Western leaders gathered for a trio of summits in Europe.

LISBON, Jul 01 (APP): The five-day UN Ocean Conference ended Friday, with more than 150 countries, including Pakistan, collectively agreeing to scale up science-based and innovative actions to address the ocean emergency.

The agreement, together with bold commitments from all sectors of society — youth, civil society, businesses and the scientific community — demonstrates the centrality of a safe, healthy and productive ocean to food security, livelihoods and a safe planet.

MOSCOW, July 1. /TASS/: Bulgaria has not been pursuing an independent policy for quite a long time and its decision to expel 70 Russian diplomats was made under the pressing of external forces, Russia’s Permanent Representative to the European Union Vladimir Chizhov said on Friday.

MOSCOW, July 1. /TASS/: The result of the NATO summit in Madrid have demonstrated that the alliance has returned to the Cold War-era military security schemes, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said on Friday.

"I think that the key conclusion we can draw is that in Madrid NATO has completed an evolution somersault in its development after its establishment in 1949 and has returned to its roots, i.e. to the Cold War-era military security schemes," he said at a meeting of the Valdai international discussion club.

MINSK, July 1. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin’s proposal to convene a summit of the permanent members of the UN Security Council is still on the table, and Moscow hopes this initiative will materialize as soon as the West "regains its senses," Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday.

GRODNO, July 1. /TASS/: No sanctions or restrictions will be able to change the course for integration of Russia and Belarus, Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko told reporters Friday.

"No sanctions, no restrictions will ever change the course of Belarus and Russia for further convergence, integration, building of an efficient Union State," she said after the plenary meeting of the Forum of Regions of the two states.

According to the speaker, "nothing can obstruct this."

MOSCOW, July 1. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin in a telephone conversation with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday talked about actions of several countries that led to global food problems.

"Putin drew attention to the systemic mistakes made by a number of countries, which led to the disruption of free trade in food products and provoked a significant increase in their price. Unlawful sanctions against Russia have exacerbated an already difficult situation," the Kremlin press service said.

MADRID, Jul 1 (NNN-XINHUA) – The 2022 Summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), wrapped up here yesterday, amid mounting criticisms of the military alliance’s increasingly aggressive and destabilising security policies, unveiled at the meeting.

Twenty-two NATO members yesterday agreed to launch the NATO Innovation Fund, a multi-sovereign venture capital fund, that will invest one billion euros (1.05 billion U.S. dollars), in startups and other venture capital funds, developing emerging technologies for both civilian and military use.

MOSCOW, Jul 1 (NNN-TASS) – Russian President, Vladimir Putin, and visiting Indonesian President, Joko Widodo, yesterday, discussed the current situation in Ukraine, and the supplies of grain and fertilisers, amid a global food shortage.

During a joint briefing after their talks at the Kremlin, Putin said that, he informed Widodo in detail of the situation in Ukraine.

Speaking about the imbalance in the global food market, Putin attributed the problem to many years of irresponsible macroeconomic policies in some Western countries.